Tag: life

2018 Was…

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2018 was a very memorable experience for me. I woke up to posts talking about all the negativity in 2018 and yet I don’t remember it. Sure, I’m very aware of the social and political issues of 2018 but in our individual lives, outside of those issues that may affect you personally, 2018 was not a bad year, in my experience.

From my point of view, 2018 was a year of hope and resilience. 2018 was the year that we conquered our fears, we stood up to bullies, and stood our grounds in support of the things we believed in. 2018 was a year of great losses but also a year of great victories. After every shadow that threatened to swallow us in sorrow, came a dawn of warm sunlight and positivity that made us believe in humanity again. Behind every viral video of injustice, there was a video of inspiration and love that helped remind me that the world isn’t so black and white. I was reminded that people are good and can do good when given the chance and the tools to change someone’s life.

2018 was the year that one of my aunts who is in her late 50s and a young lady I knew from high school, who is in her mid 20s, both beat breast cancer. 2018 was also the year I fold out I have a lump in my own breast and although it isn’t cancerous right now, my doctors want to monitor it for the next two years due to my family’s history with cancers. 2018 was the year I thought I had breast cancer. 2018 was the year that I realized that my life could end at the age of 23 and I was forced to ask myself if I was happy with myself, my achievements, and where I was in life. 

2018 was the year I dared to have dreams and hopes for the future.

2018 was the year I lost weight but gained a love and appreciation for myself that I thought I’d already had. 2018 was the year that I vowed to take my health more seriously because the thought of death by preventable diseases scared me.

2018 was the year I moved to a different state only to move back home three months later after the job fell apart and I’d nearly maxed out all of my credit cards.

2018 was the year I made the first move, romantically, even when I’ve been told that women should not. 

2018 was the year I learned a new skill: photography and tried (and failed) to start a photography business. But from this failure, I eased my foot into a different door of opportunity.

2018 was the year I finally got an “adult” job and although I’m still settling in, I can finally see how good it feels to be able to take care of myself financially. 

2018 was the year that I told myself I was going to write a book and so therefore I did. I wrote the first draft of a 257 page novel over the course of three months and realized the only thing standing between me and the things I desire is…me.

2018 wasn’t a horrible year for me. It was a memorable one. A year that taught me lessons I will take into 2019.

What did your 2018 teach you?

When Life Is Going Great

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My last few posts were all kind of dark so I decided to take a step back and get my life together.

This is what that looks like:

1. I moved back to St. Louis.

I was in Houston, TX for three months before I came crawling back home but to be fair, I didn’t come back because I was homesick, I came back because I was broke. The job that I moved down there for didn’t work out and then the second job I was able to get was horrible and ended with me filing a formal complaint with the company’s HR department due to verbal abuse from my boss. I had such a hard time getting a job because I didn’t have a car. I had several interviewers tell me the reason they were not going to hire me was because I didn’t have a car. It makes sense, sort of, Houston is huge but I was even turned down on a job that was literally across the street from the house I lived in because I didn’t have a car and I was young and they were afraid that if they trained me for the position, I’d leave within the next ten years. No, I’m not making this up. Yes, they did really say this to me but they were also nice enough to give me temp work on the weekends. But the big defining reason why I came back home was that I was broke and in serious credit card debt.  For the majority of my three months in Houston, I lived on my credit cards and my credit score fell from 750 to 702 and now I’m about $4,000 in credit card debt. So yeah, it was time to come home.

2. I lost 10lbs in Houston

I wish I could say it’s because when I moved to Houston I truly did do one of those “New City, New Me” things but it really came down to money. I know what you’re thinking and no, I didn’t starve myself. I did the opposite. While In Houston, I stayed with my very affluent cousins. It was meant to be a stepping stone until I found my own place but when the big job fell through, it became apparent that I might end up staying with them for a much longer period than any of us had imaged. I bring up their money because it’s an important factor in health. They had enough disposable income to buy really healthy food (such as fresh fruits and vegetables) as well as higher grades of meat. So while I was down there, I ate my normal meals with the addition of fresh vegetables and I naturally lost weight. I lost about a pound a week and I feel great.

3. I’m more than 50,000 words (200+ pages) into my novel

I’ve been trying to write a book since I graduated in May of 2017. I’ve tried several times but for one reason or another, I failed. So while I was jobless and feeling sorry for myself, I sat down, scrapped everything but my characters and came up with a new story. I wrote a nineteen-page outline over the span of three days, in September, and started writing the book when I came back home in October. It’s December now and I’m more than two-thirds of the way into the first draft and haven’t made any significant changes. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish this first draft this month. I’m just so excited about this.

4. My first “real” job

In November, I landed my first “real” job a year after graduating from college. I now work at a library making close to triple the amount I made last year and I finally have health insurance. When I tell you life is going great, I really do mean it. I lucked up on this job. I flew home from Houston on a Saturday and by the following Monday, I had a job interview with a bank. After the bank job interview, I didn’t want to go straight home because I wasn’t sure If I landed the job and I didn’t want to think too much about it so I walked to my local library just to say “hi” to the librarians I grew up with. When I stepped in and told them why I was back In St. Louis, they told me they had a job opening and I should apply for it.

When I didn’t hear back from the bank the next day, I applied for the library’s job opening. A week later, I went in and did the interview and test for the position and was called back a few hours later. Because of how poorly I did on one section of the test, I assumed I wasn’t going to get the job. I assumed that they wanted to tell me that face-to-face because we’ve known each other for all these years. But when I arrived, I was informed that there may be an opening for a higher paying position and they wanted to know if I was interested. I told them “yes” and they told me I had to wait a week to have this new position approved by Human Resources. A week passed and I received a phone call from HR informing me of my new job position. I was elated beyond description. I’d been having such crappy luck, job wise, that it’s hard to believe this all happened this way.

I’m just super happy that life is finally going great.

First Month In Houston, TX

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So I moved to Houston, Texas from St. Louis, Missouri last month and everything went wrong…and right. Let me explain!

I decided to pack my life up into five boxes and move halfway across the country with hopes of getting a better job. St. Louis is small, it’s hard to get jobs, the pay is bad, and I have student loans. So when my cousin approached me for the second time in regards to me moving to Houston, I finally gave in to logic. The original plan was: he would help me move to Houston; my family would drive down to Houston to say their final goodbyes and see where I’ll be living; my cousin would let me crash with him and his family until I moved into my own apartment; my cousin would give me one of his cars; and I would transfer my job down to Houston. That was the plan but things rarely go as planned.

A month before I left St. Louis I found out that the car my cousin was going to give me was damaged and the repairs would cost more than the car was worth (in his opinion). I honestly just believe he wanted me to get a new car because he’s not the type of person to promise you something without looking into it first. Meaning, he would have looked at the car to make sure it wasn’t too damaged before telling me he’d give it to me. It was a 2005 GM Envoy and he thought it was too big and too old of a model for me. So, by the time I made it to Houston, I no longer had a car and I would need to start readjusting my budget for housing because now I would probably also have a car note.

My cousin did allow me to move into the bottom half of his 5-year-old townhouse. It really does feel like my own little apartment down there most days. I have a big bedroom, big windows, a walk-in closet, and a big full bathroom down there. If I’m being honest, my favorite part of my living quarters is that bathroom. It’s gorgeous.

img_2979Although I moved to Houston, TX only half of my things did. My mother, brother, sister, and my sister’s husband and children were supposed to drive down to Houston a few days after I flew but after a series of unfortunate events, they couldn’t come. I was already sad about this because I really wanted to see my family one last time, after all, we’d planned for them to drive down here two days after I flew, so we didn’t say all the mushy goodbyes and stuff and when I finally realized I wasn’t going to see or hug them again until probably December, I got very sad. But then I realized that they were also supposed to bring the rest of my things down with them because I could only fly with my big suitcase, my carry on, and my camera bag. My heart sunk even lower. I’d already thrown away so much stuff to get it down to five boxes, but to then lose those too…it hurt. 

It also took me a week to realize I didn’t have a job. Yeah, the company I was within St. Louis wasn’t the best place to work, largely because of the pay, but I was still trying to transfer my job to Houston so that I could still have a job. I went through most of the interviewing process while I was still in St. Louis. By the time I made it to Houston, all I had to do was meet up with the director of my department and the facility director. After that, I never heard back from them. It’s been a month and I haven’t even received the little auto-sent message of “the interviewing process will not continue”. If it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t have a job, I wouldn’t have felt too crappy about the situation as a whole. Like I said, the pay was really low although the same position I had in St. Louis was a salary position down here in Houston, so I won’t talk bad about Houston’s pay, just their communication skills. I spent most of the month walking and cycling in the Houston heat, applying to different jobs near me and luck finally caught up with me last week when I finally got a call-back and within a few days, I was working again. I also have another interview with a full-time job that I really hope I get because working part-time isn’t going to get me a car anytime soon.

There have been other things that have happened but they are more health-related and will get their own posts.

Have you ever planned a trip or made a big life decision that didn’t go as planned? Let me know in the comments below.

And until next time, thanks for reading.

I’m 23

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I’m a pretty chill person so… feel free to click away if you’re expecting a story full of glow sticks in the desert, alcohol poisoning, and regrettable tattoos. That will probably happen on my 25th though because I plan to celebrate the year 2020 the same way people celebrated 1999. I’m dead serious.

So yeah, I turned 23 at the end of June (Thursday, June 28th to be exact) and decided to take 3 days off from life to celebrate myself and reflect on life while getting ready for my big move to Houston, TX.

This article is about what I did on my birthday. It’s just as anticlimactic as the rest of my life. Enjoy.

I woke up later than I planned, I guess I forgot to set an alarm because I knew I didn’t have to go to work. I took off for my birthday because last year I worked on my birthday and declared to myself, “Never again!” in an overly dramatic fashion probably with my fist raised and my chest puffed up. It’s not like I had anything planned but I wanted the freedom to do whatever I wanted on that day.

So, I woke up around 11:00 am and saw that my sister had texted me “happy birthday”. Her text message was one of the first things I saw and it put an instant smile on my face. I logged into Facebook and responded to the wave of “Happy Birthdays” posted on my wall. I then texted my cousin, Jimmy, happy birthday. This is something I’ve done for the past 8 years. When I didn’t have a cell phone, I would call him on the house phone and wish him a happy birthday. Our shared day has always and will always link us and although he is literally twice my age (something I just realized this year) I know this is something that I will continue to do.

After that, I got out of bed and talked with my mom and little brother for a bit before I decided to go out to eat for my birthday. I washed my hair put on some clothes and ordered an Uber and we headed out to the mall to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. 

***Fun fact: if you tell a server at the Cheesecake Factory it’s your birthday, they’ll give you one free scoop of vanilla ice-cream with hot fudge drizzled across it and a burning candle on top. It’s kind of sad but sweet at the same time. Plus, it’s your birthday so you’re happy with anything.

After that, we walked the mall for about an hour and I picked up some new Vans because I needed some new shoes. On the way out of the mall, we got some cheesecakes for later since we hadn’t had any desserts.

We made it back home at a very decent time and I thought I would do more but then the weather turned sour. I thought it was just another bad thunderstorm because we’ve been having them for the past week or so but then I heard the sirens. I went outside and saw the sky had darkened and the wind had cooled. It rushed past me with such furiousness that some of the smaller trees seemed to kneel in fear. Thick clusters of clouds moved across the sky threatening rain that would not come until much later. Apparently, the sirens were a tornado warning. I went back inside with the rest of the tenants in my building and switched the TV from Hulu to the local news and watched the flood cams and footage of the damage to houses and trees in my neighboring counties. Luckily for us, the tornado didn’t touch down in the city but a lot of the counties around St. Louis City experienced a ton of damage from the wind and the thunderstorms.

That lasted for most of the evening and killed the energy for adventure I was feeling but I did buy the new Florence + the Machine album and I spent the rest of the night swaying to it while listening to the rain.

Gone Away

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Today marks the fourth year that I’ve been on this earth without my father. I wasn’t going to make any social media posts about this subject because I didn’t want to bring anyone down, but then “Gone Away” by The Offspring came on today and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. So I’ll leave you with the lyrics that both inspire and haunt me.
Maybe in another life,
I could find you there.
Pulled away before your time.
I can’t deal. It’s so unfair!
And it feels…
And it feels like,
Heaven’s so far away
And it feels…
Yeah, it feels like
The world has grown cold
Now that you’ve gone away.
Leaving flowers on your grave
To show that I still care.
But black roses and Hail Mary’s,
Can’t bring back what’s taken from me.
I reach to the sky
And call out your name.
And if I could trade
I would…
And it feels…
And it feels like,
Heaven’s so far away
And it stings…
Yeah, it stings now
The world is so cold
Now that you’ve gone away.

Making Friends As An Adult

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Do you remember the good old days were all you had to do was sit down in class next to someone and BAM, you were best friends. It was like magic and I’ve been struggling with/failing at finding that again. Making friends as an adult is like pulling teeth. It’s a process you have to hype yourself up to do. It usually costs you money you weren’t expecting to spend and it rarely goes as planned. Sometime’s it’s painful and sometimes it leaves you feeling goofy. The whole process is bothersome if you ask me, and yet…I find myself trying.

Growing up I was socially awkward. It wasn’t until college that I become somewhat cool and even with that, I’m pretty aware that I’m a huge weirdo but at least I accept that part of myself. Embrace your weirdness. Own it. It’ll boost your self-esteem, trust me. But anyway, I’ve come to realize part of the reason I’m having a hard time making more friends as an adult is because I don’t get out much. It’s like I said before, back in the old days I made the majority of my friends by sitting next to them. Part of that was because I was so shy I couldn’t walk up to people and talk to them. We had to be forced to interact (group projects, sharing a workspace, etc.) in order for me to talk to people. Once I started talking, I usually made friends. I am a likable person and if someone didn’t like my personality, they liked how smart I was and how that could benefit them. I’ve come to realize I probably would not have made as many friends and acquaints as I did had I not been forced to be in a building with them 8 hours a day.

By the time I made it to college, I was aware of this. Most of the friends I have from college are all people that lived on my dorm floor freshman year. Sure, I made a few more friends hanging out with them and meeting their friends and every now and then I made a friend by going to an event on campus and bonding over something we both enjoyed but all of this is hard to recreate outside the magical grounds of a college campus or a school building. At work, I try to be friendly but I also try not to befriend my coworkers. It’s nothing personal, I just believe it’s good to keep your personal/social life separate from your work/professional life. So outside of work and work-related events, I rarely contact my coworkers.

But even with all of those obstacles, the biggest problem I’ve run into when it comes to making new friends is scheduling issues. Want to go see a movie Wednesday night? No, I can’t, I have to work. Want to eat dinner at my house on Saturday? Sorry, can’t do that, I already have something planned. What are you doing Monday morning? I have to do the laundry, wash the car, clean the house and go grocery shopping. What about next week? Sorry, I have a funeral to go to.

Yeah. So, even if I manage to meet someone cool I still have to deal with stuff like that.

Why is making friends as an adult so hard?

Inspiration in the Dark

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A while back I made a post about my yo-yoing weight and how I wanted to make a permanent change because I was tired of how my life was going. It’s been a few months now and I wanted to give you all an update.

It’s important to note that I have severe scoliosis—it just isn’t obvious—so my workouts are a bit limited. My limitations come in when I’m dealing with weights. I’ve been advised by a few doctors not to lift weights so my workouts usually consist of toning exercises (basic Pilates and resistance training with a resistance band) and cardio. I can do the Pilates and resistance training at home because I have yoga mats, medicine balls, exercise balls, kettlebells, small dumb bells, and several sets of resistance bands. But the one thing I can not do at home is the cardio because I hate running. So for the cardio, I was going to the gym and using the elliptical for an hour, four times a week.

This went on for about a month and a half before I lost my motivation and gave up. But wait, don’t roll your eyes just yet, let me explain. I lost my motivation because even though I was slowly slimming down I was losing a lot of muscle. Yeah, you see, I’d actually stopped doing the Pilates and resistance training and was focusing my time on the cardio because that’s all I had time for and it was working. But because I wasn’t toning my body, I lost a lot of the muscle I had in my core and ended up looking flappier than before. A good example of this is the fact that I am smaller than I was when I made the original post but I now have “love handles” because my stomach isn’t as firm as it used to be. Once I realized what was happening, I tried to correct my error but it was already too late. I’d lost some fat that used to sit around my tailbone area and because it wasn’t there to cushion me, getting down on the floor and doing the moves I used to do became painful. My tailbone and spine began to take on too much pressure and it became really painful. So I just stopped altogether.

I didn’t lose or gain any more weight until I went to Texas in the beginning of August. While I was down in Texas, I stayed with a family that was on a diet and I didn’t want to be rude so I ate what they ate and their portion sizes and I actually lost weight. I probably lost about four or five pounds over the span of two weeks just from eating better but because I don’t diet, the moment I got back to St. Louis I ate everything that I’d literally been dreaming about and gained the weight back.

This was around the time my brother became an inspirational figure to me. My fourteen-year-old brother has always been skinny and as he’s gotten older, he has also gotten taller. He has the same body type as our dad. He’s naturally skinny but with him growing so much, he was starting to look slender. He didn’t want to be slender going into high school so for the past month and a half, he’s been going to the gym and working out. Over this short amount of time, I’ve seen him put on muscle and start sculpting his body into the image he wanted. It was easy for him because he was already skinny, all he had to do was put on the muscle. But, just from watching my own friends try, I also know how hard it is to put on muscle and he’s done it all without taking supplements or drinking protein shakes or anything like that. He just eats up everything now, but I get it. He’s hungry, so I can’t really get mad at him for cleaning out the fridge. But watching him get abs, rounded shoulders, and develop the muscles in his back and pectoral region really inspired me to get back in the gym and on the yoga mat.

I know I can make a difference before the year ends.

I Am The Monster You Made

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I have anger issues. Few people know that about me. Most people see me as a loving, caring, nice (to a fault) person—motherly even. But the very few people who have truly hurt me and made me angry know the truth. I’m the silent one. The calm one until I ignite and destroy the bonds you thought I wouldn’t. And once I’m truly angry with you, you’re just about as good as dead to me.

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That sounds cold. I know. I’ve been trying to work on it because you can’t cut everyone who hurts or enrages you out of your life, or so I thought, until recently. I finally found my line in the sand. The line I will not let someone drag me across. I will not allow someone to use the people I love to hurt me. I’d rather be the monster you made than to be the one hurting. Life is too short to let people try to destroy the little happiness we can find. It’s been months now; I’m not fine but I’m not broken either.

Stay safe and find light in this dim world of turmoil.